The importance of allowing ties to decay

Recently, a number of network dataset have been constructed from archival data (e.g., email logs) with the aim to study human interaction. This has allowed researchers to study large-scale social networks. If the archival data does not included information about the severing or weakening of ties, non-relevant interaction among people, which occurred far in the past, might be deemed relevant. This post highlights this issue and suggests imposing a lifespan on interactions to record only relevant ties with the current strength.

The content of this post has been integrated in the tnet manual, see Sliding Window.